New entrants will require the approval of Formula One Management (FOM), which controls the commercial rights.
This has so far proved a barrier to Andretti Global, which has a bid backed by Cadillac. FOM has faced resistance from several teams, partly because it will dilute the share of F1 profits that is currently split between the ten teams.
Although new entrants must currently pay $200m to compensate for the effect, F1’s rising revenues mean that teams value themselves more highly, and see the price as too cheap.
“It’s obviously a crazy scheme and I can’t imagine that we’d be successful,” said Dicker, who founded Australian IT distributor Dicker Data, which turned over £1.6bn last year. “But if you look at it, if you look at our actual resources, we actually have a very compelling offering.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of months to be honest. Just sort of oscillated back and forth about whether to apply or not.”
Dicker took a majority shareholding in the Carlin team via Rodin cars earlier this year, and would use its expertise to run an F1 programme.
Cars would be designed and built at Rodin’s New Zealand facility in Mt Lyford, Canterbury, which has the equipment to produce the FZED carbon-fibre single-seater, and will also be used for the forthcoming FZERO track-only hypercar, with a bespoke V10 engine.